Indian Defence Budget Hiked By More Than 17 Pc

New Delhi, March 16: To give a further push to its rapid military modernization, India Friday hiked its military spending by over 17 percent to Rs.1,93,407 crore (over $42 billion/Rs.1.93 trillion).

In real terms, this increase amounts to Rs.28,992 crore ($6.5 billion) in the total outlay for defence for 2012-13 compared to Rs.1,64,415 crore ($36 billion) for the previous year (2011-12).Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, presenting the general budget for the next fiscal in the Lok Sabha, said this allocation was based on the present needs projected by the defence ministry and that further needs for national security would be met.He also announced a raise in the capital expenditure of the armed forces to Rs.79,579 crore ($17.5 billion), a 15.7 percent hike from last year's capital allocation of Rs.69,199 crore ($15 billion).The capital expenditure will go towards new procurement of weapons and systems, and towards committed liability in the form of payments for contracts already signed in the previous years.India is on the verge of signing a whopping $20 billion contract for 126 Rafale medium multirole combat aircraft, apart from a $600 million deal for 75 Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer for its air force.It has already signed contracts for 10 C-17s transport planes and upgrade of 51 Mirage-2000 combat jets in 2011.It also has 49 warships on order with several shipyards, of which 40 are with Indian shipyards.Several artillery purchases for its army are also due. In particular, the proposal to buy 145 ultralight howitzers from the US under a government-to-government sale is also progressing.

London: India has become the world's biggest importer of arms, displacing China by accounting for 10 per cent of global arms sales volumes. Over the past five years, India's imports of major weapons increased by 38 per cent between 2007 and 2011, a Swedish security think tank said with Asia topping other regions in arms imports.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its new report said that India was closely followed by China and Pakistan whose weapons imports constituted 5 per cent each of global sales.Pakistan took delivery of "significant numbers of combat aircrafts during this period: 50 JF-17s from China and 30 F-16s from US," SIPRI said.

The Swedish think tank said China, which had been world's top arms importer in 2006-2007, has now dropped to fourth place, attributing this to improvements in the country's arms industry and its rising arms exports.SIPRI said China is now world's sixth largest world exporter of weapons behind the US, Russia, Germany, France and UK.But "while the volume of China's arms export is increasing, this is largely a result of Pakistan importing more arms from China.""Beijing has not achieved a major breakthrough in any other significant market," the report said.According to SIPRI estimates India is likely to spend more than $100 billion on weapons and systems in the next 15 years.The Swedish institute catalogued India's major recent deals as 126 fighter jets and notable deliveries of other combat aircrafts, including 120 Su-30MKs and 16 MIG-29Ks from Russia and 20 Jaguars from UK.Other deals include transport planes, submarines and a range of naval vessels, Tanks, small arms and artillery.